Archive for August, 2010

Six charcoal drawings, are on show at the West End boutique hairdressing salon, Billi Currie, at 47 Chiltern Street, London W1U 6LX. Billi is an excellent, experienced stylist, not only very popular in Marylebone but also a busy schedule in the international Magazine and Fashion world. This is the third time the salon have shown my work, Billi is happy for visitors to come to the salon to see the drawings.

A weekend in Suffolk with my tent, bike, sketch book and etchings. On Saturday I went for a rejuvinating long cycle ride from the campsite, Mill Hill Farm in Westleton, to Dunwich and Walberswick, stopping every now and again to draw. I cycled through the Walberswick Nature Reserve where there are now grazing Dartmoor ponies,

through the reed beds where some swans were nesting

to the beach, past Southwold harbour, along Blackshore

and back to the campsite via a steep descending track though the woods and roads.

Before returning to London I left six etchings at Buckenham Galleries in Southwold. Buckenham Galleries have shown my work over the last nine years and gave me a very successful solo exhibition five years ago.

This week Michael Clark Company have been rehearsing for a new dance in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, responding to the huge space. On Tuesday I drew during the rehearsal.

A totally different experience from drawing the Featherstonehaughs. Rather than sit a few feet away from the dancers, I sat way up looking down on them from the first floor, although I longed to get in close I enjoyed the spacing created by the dancers and the sense of perspective below me.

During the lunch break the dances evaporated but Michael Clark remained and walked through what was to be rehearsed during the afternoon. (see above). I love watching dancers do this, the intense concentration, the body in total contact with the brain, thinking with and through the body. I was sure if someone spoke to him he wouldn’t hear, so intense were his thoughts/movements.

Afternoon rehearsal

I also drew this company performing come, been and gone at the Barbican in June.

Tamasha, have produced a wonderful new show, The House of Bilquis-Bibi, set in the Punjabi town of Jhang. It is an adaptation of Lorca’s The House of Bernada Alba, written by Sudha Bhuchar and directed by Kristine Landon-Smith. While I watched I was immediately transported to a country of arid heat and dust with clever use of the stage set (by designer Sue Mayes) and lighting, creating dappled shadows across the stage.The text flows seamlessly between English and Punjabi, but the meaning is never confused or lost, rather the emotions are heightened. An overprotective mother stifling her five daughters with love, who long for freedom from the simmering oppression.The show opened in July in London’s Hampstead Theatre is now on tour.

Due to domestic reasons the blog has largely been abandoned over the last few months, although I plan to rectify this I can’t resist adding some holiday snaps – or rather sketches. My kids and I were in Dorset, a friends cottage near Lyme Regis for a week followed by a few days camping in Osmington. Days were spent on the beach, swimming, playing ball games

searching for fossils

or walking in the woods or along the coast path.

We camped at Eweleze Farm overlooking the sea. In the evenings we made a campfire outside our tents, toasted marshmallows and played charades in the dark, every now and then one of them would sing and all cheered when a chinese lantern floated over our heads and out to sea.

Now they’re away with their Dad and his new family and I’m missing them.

The Featherstonhaughs are the all male dance dance company directed and founded by choreographer Lea Anderson, we have known each other since the early 80’s when we were students at Laban and Goldsmiths. Before her dance degree Lea studied Fine Art at St Martins which comes across in her productions, but even more so in the rehearsal studio. I first drew the company in 2001 during rehearsals of 3 with their all women sister company the Cholmondeleys. Lea invited me to draw the rehearsals through a chance meeting while I was doing my MA, since then I’ve returned to draw rehearsals of Double Take, Yippee!!! and Dancing on Your Grave. It was through this first opportunity to draw during rehearsals that I came to be involved in many other dance companies.

Edits is a new work with reference to filmic time and images, and film editing, this is a first sketch.

There will be (fabulous) live music by Steve Blake and Will Saunders but at this early stage the dancers move to silence apart from the counts. One of the dancers bares an uncanny resemblance to the lawyer who saw me through a very sad and painful time in my life, I find my concentration is waning, as in my head I hurtle back to the past. But hey this man is not a lawyer he’s a dancer in a vivid green dress and heels, in the lunch break I seem to walk miles to attempt to shake off unwanted memories and the ghosts in my head.

In the afternoon they rehearsed The Featherstonehaughs draw on the Sketchbooks of Egon Schiele, creating beautiful clusters of movement. There are many things I like about the dances that Lea creates but one striking aspect, particularly when you are up as close as I am, is the focus and facial expressions of the dancers, you feel yourself drawn in as if you too are part of the activity and energy.

The Art Week at Halstow Primary School, Greenwich was way back in June, so these pictures are a little late! The theme was the Elements, I selected Water and worked with about thirty year 5 and year 6’s (10 and 11 year olds) over two days to make four life size swimmers using chicken wire,

Disappointingly I arrived too late and missed Ballet Black dancing on Friday, these are drawings I made of the company when they performed at The Linbury, Covent Garden in March.

This year a much bigger crowd, strangely no extra loos and horrifyingly word travelled fast about two rapes on site. It took a while to feel the Latitude magic that my kids and I had felt in the two previous years. Music highlights for me were: Florence and The Machine, First Aid Kit, The XX, Jonsi, Rodrigo Y Gabriella and dancing and singing en masse to Vampire Weekend. My sons enjoyed The Maccabees and crowd surfing to Crystal Castles (next to Alice Glass…) I loved the Faraway Forest, a new wooded area which came alive at night full of masked revellers, music and dancing. Oh and on Sunday morning Tom Jones sang from his new album Praise and Blame, what a voice – gorgeous.

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About Sally

I draw in response to activity, focussing on live performance. Dancers are my stimulus, I draw while they rehearse and perform, transcribing motion and stillness, balance and falling, solitude and chaos, into a series of marks on paper. The drawings are in the present, an immediate and direct reaction to the rhythmic movement.

The drawings inform the paintings, etchings and life size wire sculpture created in my studio while the memory of the movement is still strong.